fatwa

'Un-Islamic' game not welcome in kingdom

(Newser) -
It didn't take a Pikachu poking his head up at the Kaaba for Saudi religious authorities to denounce Pokemon. The country's top religious authority has renewed a 2001 ban on the "un-Islamic" game, though it made no mention of the Pokemon Go augmented-reality game currently conquering the...
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No problem using it in public parks or malls, though

(Newser) -
Twenty-first-century fatwas have become way more technologically advanced than edicts of old against the likes of Salman Rushdie and other supposed infidels. To wit: A Saudi scholar has issued a ruling warning against the pilfering of WiFi, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. "Taking advantage of the WiFi service illegally...
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Panel condemns 'flagrant breaches of international law'

(Newser) -
Better late than never? The Swedish Academy, which selects the winners of the Nobel Prize in literature, has condemned an Iranian death warrant against British writer Salman Rushdie, 27 years after it was pronounced. Two members quit the academy in 1989 after it refused to condemn Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini's...
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'It will never lose its power,' Iran official says of death edict

(Newser) -
Since 1989, Salman Rushdie has had to live a mostly underground life after Iran's then-supreme leader called for his assassination over the novel The Satanic Verses. Now that fatwa, which is occasionally paraded out by the country's religious leaders, has been reupped yet again, and this time 40...
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Ruling from special committee lays out mandates in excruciating detail

(Newser) -
The "treasure trove" of ISIS intelligence nabbed in a May raid in Syria by US Special Operations Forces included one especially detailed document that's now being published for the first time after a Reuters review. "One of the inevitable consequences of the jihad of establishment is that...
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Even if it kills the captive

(Newser) -
The Islamic State may be harvesting organs from living prisoners for profit, according to a Reuters exclusive. The news company obtained a copy of Fatwa Number 68 , which provides a religious justification for organ harvesting. "The apostate's life and organs don't have to be respected and may...
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He forbids 'un-Islamic' fun after rare snowfall

(Newser) -
After a fierce winter storm blanketed much of the Middle East—including northern Saudi Arabia—with snow last week, a prominent Saudi cleric issued a ruling banning people from making snowmen, calling them un-Islamic. Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid said "it is not permitted to make a statue out of...
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Militant Sunni group issues fatwa, official says

(Newser) -
A UN official in Iraq shared disturbing news with reporters today: ISIS militants have issued a religious edict declaring that all women in or around Mosul must undergo female genital mutilation, reports Reuters . The fatwa from the Sunni insurgents, who overtook the northern Iraqi city in June, applies to females...
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Damascus suburbs being starved out

(Newser) -
The days of dogs and cats living in Damascus or its hard-hit suburbs might be numbered, at least according to local clerics. With reports surfacing of regime loyalists using starvation tactics against rebel-held areas like Muadhamiya, Syrian clerics have issued a fatwa telling the faithful that is OK to eat...
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Hamza Kashgari, 23, tweeted that he wants to talk to Mohammed as a 'friend'

(Newser) -
Islamists are calling for the execution of a young Saudi Arabian who tweeted last week about the Prophet Mohammed. "I have loved the rebel in you, you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me," Hamza Kashgari, 23, wrote in a tweet addressed to Mohammed. But "...
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Doctor listed Hena Akhter’s death as a 'suicide'

(Newser) -
The family of a 14-year-old girl who was beaten to death in Bangladesh says she didn’t commit adultery—she was raped. Hena Akhter’s family talked to CNN this week, and offered a heartbreaking story of the girl’s death. In their telling, Akhter’s much older cousin, Mahbub...
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She was spotted talking to married man

(Newser) -
A 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl has died after a sentence of 100 cane lashings imposed when a village woman accused the teen of talking to her husband. "What sort of justice is this? My daughter has been beaten to death," sobbed the girl's father. Some media reports said the...
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Suicide bombers are hell-bound, warns Islamic scholar

(Newser) -
An influential Islamic scholar has issued a sweeping and unreserved condemnation of terrorism in all its forms as un-Islamic. "Terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it," Sheik Tahir ul-Qadri wrote in his 600-page...
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Machines violate rules on modesty

(Newser) -
Body scanners at airports violate Islamic rules on modesty and Muslim-American groups have barred the faithful from using them. “It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women," an influential Muslim council said in a fatwa forbidding...
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Novelist reveals how he protected his friend

(Newser) -
Twenty years after the Iranian leadership declared a death sentence on Salman Rushdie, fellow novelist Ian McEwan reveals that he sheltered the writer in a house in the English countryside. In a long profile of McEwan in the New Yorker, the novelist describes how the pair listened to news of...
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Edict brought Muslim culture war to the West: Hitchens

(Newser) -
When Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens knew what it meant: "This was not just a warning of what was to come,” he writes in Vanity Fair, “it was the warning.” A global culture war, between Muslim fundamentalists and everyone else, had...
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(Newser) -
Islamic authorities in Malaysia issued a fatwa today against Muslims practicing yoga, BBC reports. The chair of Malaysia's National Fatwa Council said Hindu elements are essential to yoga and could destroy a Muslim's faith. "We are of the view that yoga combines physical exercise, religious elements, chanting and worshipping...
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Pakistani feminists also angry at president for 'shameful' behavior

(Newser) -
Asif Ali Zardari’s overly-friendly interaction with Sarah Palin earned Pakistan’s president a fatwa from a conservative mosque for salacious behavior, not to mention the scorn of feminists who accuse him of objectifying the US vice-presidential candidate, the Christian Science Monitor reports. At the UN last week, Zardari told...
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Sheik urges fatwa on owners of channels with 'corrupt beliefs'

(Newser) -
The highest judge in Saudi Arabia says “it is permissible” to murder owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast questionable material during Ramadan, the Guardian reports. When a caller to his radio show asked about channels featuring “bad programs,” Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan responded, “What does the...
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Officials, human rights groups dispute extent of escalating violence

(Newser) -
Gays in Iraq are the targets of increasing violence by militias, police, and religious extremists, a largely unreported consequence of the 2003 US invasion. A fatwa is in place, reports the Chicago Tribune, and gays are fighting to emigrate to Sweden, Germany, and other countries. Recent reports by the...
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